Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber's budget proposal won quick applause Tuesday from Republican legislative leaders who appreciate how he's adopting their general approach to putting together a budget.

Kitzhaber has dropped the traditional strategy of stressing how much the state has to cut from the cost of continuing current services. Instead he has largely given each agency the dollar amount they had in the last budget - and then allocated the additional $1.2 billion in expected revenue among his top priorities, such as education.

It's the kind of approach that Republicans have been pushing for years, saying that budgeting at "current service levels" assumes an ever-spiraling cost of doing everything. Supporters of that approach counter that it's unrealistic to ignore the impact of inflation and population growth.

"What I appreciate is he's starting from a flat-funding level," said House Co-Speaker Bruce Hanna, R-Roseburg. "I also appreciate he's not going out there espousing a $3.5 billion shortfall (in the cost of continuing current services). He's much more reflecting there's $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion in new dollars."

The Senate Republican Caucus released a statement echoing Hanna: "We are excited that the Governor is building his budget on some of the principles we have been trumpeting for the past four years."

"The governor seems to understand we have to make a change from an expenditure-based budget to a revenue-based budget," added Dennis Richardson, who is co-chairing the House side of the budget-writing Joint Ways and Means Committee.

In simple terms, Richardson said, that means that instead of figuring out a way to buy everything he likes on the store shelves, he's basing his purchasing decisions on what the state can afford.

In a sense, this can be more rhetorical than anything else. Governors always are limited in how much spending they can propose, and in as tough of an economic and budget climate in this, any governor would have to submit a budget that would call for a lot of sacrifice.

By adopting a budget-framing approach amenable to Republicans, though, Kitzhaber has gained some traction in the closely divided Legislature. the governor also wants the Legislature to put together a budget based on the Feb. 15 revenue forecast, instead of waiting until the forecast in May.

This also is pleasing to Republican legislators, who have long argued that the Legislature should particularly settle early on an education budget so schools will have more budget certainty.

Hanna and Richardson both said they appreciated how the governor invited top legislative and budget leaders over to Mahonia Hall two weeks ago to discuss the budget.

The group sat around the formal dining table and heard from Kitzhaber's transition team leaders and got an advance peek at the governor's budget plans. And they got to offer their own suggestions.

"I'm delighted to see a governor who is interested in working with the Legislature rather than acting as if he's in some parallel universe," said Richardson.

Does this mean it will be sunny days ahead for the Democratic governor and legislative leaders of both parties?

Not necessarily. For instance, the governor is not yet making it clear what kind of salary and benefit proposal he will make to the state employee unions. Republicans have been pushing for state employees to pick up more of their own pension and health-care costs and it remains to be seen how they'll view Kitzhaber's bargaining proposals that he will release later this month.

And they are far from signing off on the governor's particular spending priorities, whether on schools or health care. there's still a lot of hard negotiating to come.